


pull my strings, i don't mind

by carlemon



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Ambiguous or Implied Relationship(s) - Freeform, Blue is Dating Rutherford and the Chengs, Koh is A Bad Winner, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-22 21:49:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12491592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carlemon/pseuds/carlemon
Summary: Blue and the Vancouver crowd (attempt to) play Monopoly.





	pull my strings, i don't mind

“This sucks,” said SickSteve. Blue craned her neck to glance at him over the cartoonishly oversized collar of her jacket, and they shared a look of mutual understanding.

Sounding far more hassled than he ought to be, Koh sighed, sliding the dice to a hungover-looking Ryang. 

“You’re losing, man. Are you seriously gonna take it out on Monopoly?” He nudged Ryang with his elbow; the latter peered blearily up at him and grumbled in emphasis of his already impressive air of fatigue, his fistful of paper money scattered ‘round him. Blue had never seen dice rolled so miserably. She respected that.

SickSteve opened his mouth, then thought better of it and made a vague noise of indignation instead. Koh hummed triumphantly, and continued to nudge Ryang in the side. “Five. Uh, not bad. That puts you on— ChengTwo’s hotel? Ryang?”

"It’s six in the _fucking morning, man—”_

“Fine. Jesus. Blue? Thanks. Ryang’s being bitchy. _Again_.” 

Blue leaned over, detaching herself from Rutherford’s idle touch, knocking Lee-Squared’s wheelbarrow off the board in the process, and bumped Ryang’s fist. He smiled weakly at her, bloodshot eyes ringed, raccoon-like, and appreciative. “Nice necklace. I like how the beads don’t match— _dig_ those pipecleaners. Very Woodstock. Très chic.”

She grinned, and moved his thimble five spaces forward. Right onto ChengTwo’s two-story hotel. Figures. “Thanks. Ronan hates it— your cat found it, by the way, so I’m very grateful.”

“Shit, really?”

“Remember that shoebox under the table? I tripped over it trying to make her give me Gansey’s glasses and it sort of— fell out. Along with some marbles? A keychain? Quality stuff.”

“That was my nostalgia box,” piped up Lee-Squared. “I stole that keychain from Carruthers in third grade, back at Prep." Bunched in on himself in Henry’s lap, he appeared ridiculously, impossibly, small— another aesthetic Blue could appreciate, and was most probably emulating from her own seat atop Rutherford’s crossed legs. The latter’d pulled out of the game the second he’d fallen on one of Koh’s properties, and had spent the last hour or so carefully carding his fingers through the vicious knots of Blue’s unbrushed hair. His gentle ministrations were almost worth the sporadic looks of savage triumph Koh shot his, and by proxy, her, way. “Bro, he never forgot it. Like, I have geo with him third period Thursdays, and the _looks_ he gives me—”

Koh cleared his throat. “ChengTwo. Your move.”

Beside her, Henry snickered, his laughter vibrating pleasantly against her skin, gentle in the (rapidly closing) distance between them, and the two of them and Rutherford. He stretched out a leg, almost kicking Lee in the face to the latter’s jeering amusement, and prodded ChengTwo with one fluffy sock. “ChengTwo, please! Get with the times.”

Blue nudged him, conspiratorially, with her shoulder, wiggling her eyebrows. “Are those Hello Kitty socks? I _love_ those. You don’t deserve those.”

“They are pretty brilliant,” agreed Rutherford from above her, baritone tickling the back of her neck. 

“Thanks, Ms. Woo got them for me. I doesn’t think she knows they’re supposed to be fake Supreme.”

She winced. “Did you have to tell me that? They were such cute socks. Hey, ChengTwo—”

ChengTwo, bless him, managed to respond just before Koh snapped. He said: “Uh?”

“Henry,” Henry reminded him, gently, cheerfully. “It’s your turn to flay Ryang of everything he’s got.” He poked him again, this time in the chest. 

They were really such nice socks. 

ChengTwo took a good, long, look at them and forgot about swatting Henry away, instead shaking his hands out of his hoodie to take Henry’s leg in his arms, bringing them together in a way that involved a lot of awkward shuffling on her and Rutherford’s parts, and a lot of melodramatic groaning and cracking of joints on Henry’s. His sleeves, an egregious engine red, read _skate and destroy_ in a spiky, fading, hand. He looked bizarre, and tacky, and very wealthy; Blue figured she looked bizarre, and tacky, and not as wealthy, but probably just as tastelessly good. 

“Holy fuck,” he said. “How long was I out for?”

Rutherford hummed gently. “You knocked out just before Koh bought his seventh hotel. You want another Red Bull? Debilitating boredom is making me thirsty.”

ChengTwo nodded vigorously —”thanks, babe,”— and Blue allowed herself to be detached from Rutherford as he pulled himself to his feet and ambled towards the kitchen, aiming a gentle kick at Henry in the process. Koh clicked his teeth impatiently. Pawing at his thigh, Lee began to giggle, falling neatly out of Henry’s lap.

“It’s just a _game,_ dude—”

“What are my rights? Fuck, I mean— what’s the context?”

They all looked ChengTwo, who was poring over Ryang’s thimble on the board. (He was vibrating slightly in his ugly hoodie, occasionally twitching in a way that revealed in brief slivers the freckled expanse of his belly.) (Blue figured both she and Henry could _really_  appreciate that.)

Ryang eyed him like ChengTwo had just left him to die, and die painfully. In all honesty, he probably had. “What?”

“Did you, like, deface my property? What _state_ are we playing this in, what’s the deal? Fuck!” He giggled feverishly, vibrantly, under Koh’s weary glare. “I mean, like— do we have history? You _violate_ a _contract_ , or, or, _what_ —”

“It’s fucking _Monopoly_ , man, just take my fucking money—”

“ _Holy_ — nah, dude, you don’t get it—”

Lee-Squared reached over the both of them, slapping a fistful of brightly-coloured notes into ChengTwo’s twitching hands. “ _There._ Can I roll, now, like— if I get jail, can I stop playing?”

Scrunching his wad of money into his fist, SickSteve grouched: “I told you we should’ve just played D&D.” Behind him, Rutherford emerged from the kitchen, laughing silently and juggling four cans of Red Bull in his hands. Blue made a face at him, and he returned it, miming pouring one can over Koh’s head before tossing it, under-arm, to Blue.

Koh snatched the dice from Ryang, slapped them into Lee-Squared’s open palms. “I can’t believe you’re all  _this_ bad. I can’t tell if you’re all taking the piss or not. I can’t tell if you’re all this shit at Monopoly.”

Rubbing the condensation on her can off onto her jacket, Blue grinned toothily, feeling sleepy and safe, sort of at home, inexplicably entertained. “No, I’m pretty good. This does kind of suck, though. I lost my skateboard two rounds ago. Oh, hell— can someone help me get this open?” She pressed the can back into Rutherford’s hands, jerking with a violent shout when he aimed it at her. A miserable heap of Harvard hoodie and peroxide blond, Ryang cackled at her, half-retching into Koh’s sleeve with the effort.

“This is Golf Wang, man, I swear if you _puke on me—”_

“You’ll _sue_ me, yeah?”

“I’ll—”

Wringing himself out to sling one arm ‘round Blue’s shoulders and one arm ‘round ChengTwo’s, Henry laughed, the sound warm and bubbly, audibly smitten. “Maybe this does suck.” He squeezed Blue’s shoulder, testing her. She arched an eyebrow at him, and tested him back. He grinned with all his teeth and asked: “did we ever get through a full session of D&D?”

Blue shrugged, shimmying back into Rutherford's lap, sipping bubbles off the top of her can and prickling the line of her mouth with her tooth-full grin. "Do we get through anything?"

"Good point. You know what?" He tangled his fingers into the hair at Lee-Squared's nape, thumb ghosting over his lip. Lee-Squared poked it with his tongue, wiggling his eyebrows at Blue as he did so. "Let's start."

Taking careful aim at Ryang's forehead, Koh flicked the dice off the board. He was already pawing at Ryang's Red Bull, holding it just out of his reach; Ryang, bless him, looked too exhausted and pissed-off to even bitch about it. "I claim DM."


End file.
